Executive Decision
by AislingK
Summary: Tim is suffering from an acute case of smugness, and a criminal investigation suffers as a result. Warning: Contains the spanking of an adult.
1. Chapter 1

**Title**: Executive Decision

**Disclaimer**: These characters belong to Donald Bellisario, and I hope he won't mind that I've borrowed them for awhile. The story is not connected to any particular episode or storyline from NCIS.

**Warning**: This story contains the **spanking** of an adult. If that's not your thing, it would be best if you didn't read it, or at least that you refrain from telling me about your displeasure.

* * *

Tim was staring intently at his computer screen when he felt something bounce off his forehead. Looking up he saw Tony smirking at him from behind a straw, and glancing back down Tim saw the small wad of paper now lying innocently on his desk. '_A spitball_?' Tim thought to himself. '_Seriously, are we in seventh grade?_' Deciding not to waste his breath on such a juvenile act, Tim merely shot Tony a disapproving look and then refocused on the monitor.

"What'cha up to, McGee?" Tony prompted impatiently.

"A Sudoku." Tim replied.

"A soo-what?"

"Sudoku." Tim tried to avoid becoming engaged in conversation.

"You eat that with wasabi?"

Tim felt a sudden wave of nostalgia for graduate school. He missed the level of intellectual conversation that was perpetually flying about. Even when they were goofing off there had been something kind of cerebral about it. He loved his job at NCIS, but sometimes he felt like the gifted kid who'd been sent accidentally to the detention room.

Tim sighed. "It's not a food, Tony. It's a puzzle."

Tony grinned, and Tim wondered if Tony had just been trying to get a rise out of him. "Well, _I'm _having Chinese for lunch. Moo goo gai pan!" Tony said in an absurd parody of a Chinese accent. Tim was about to admonish Tony for his offensive use of a cultural stereotype, but realized the futility of this action and resumed his study of the numbers in his puzzle grid.

Tim didn't hear the footsteps behind him before Tony announced "Hey, Boss! Probie's playing a video game!"

The hand connected with the back of his head.

"I'm on my lunch!" Tim sputtered. "And it's not a video game! It's a numerical brainteaser requiring logical analysis and deductive reasoning, and there's one in every daily newspaper that doesn't have a pin-up girl in a bikini on Page 2!" Not that Tony would read such a paper, he thought irritably.

"You finished the report I asked you to do this morning, McGee?" Gibbs asked.

"Um, no, Boss." Tim lost some of his righteous indignation. But still, it was his lunch break. Every civilized job in the world had a lunch break during which employees could do whatever they wanted.

"Then I don't care whether she's wearing a bikini or not. Get back to work."

Tim was momentarily thrown off by the non-sequitur. He was about to clarify to Gibbs that there were no bikinis in his Sudoku when he grasped that this hadn't actually been his boss's point and let the matter drop. Still, he was a bit offended by the insinuation that he was slacking on the job. He was the hardest working of any of the agents on Gibbs' team, and it irritated him to be addressed with the same tone that their boss usually reserved for Tony's antics. Tim wondered how much of Gibbs' autocratic leadership style had been driven by Tony's need to be closely monitored and firmly disciplined. Sure, Tim knew that Gibbs was used to giving orders in the Marines, but he was pretty sure that Gibbs understood the difference between the expectations of a civilian boss and a military CO. Tim could appreciate why Gibbs had to handle Tony with a strict, almost parental, approach – Tony needed clearly defined rules and boundaries, and a firm hand to enforce them, but Tim was self-motivated and hard-working, and he got the job done when it needed to be done. Yes, he'd been punished by Gibbs a few times early on, but mostly those had been instances when emotion or naiveté had clouded his judgment and he'd done something stupid as a result. But that was in the past, and anyways he certainly didn't need to be punished – or threatened with punishment – to give his best at work, as Tony seemed to require.

To be fair, Tim had the highest esteem for Gibbs, sometimes bordering on awe. And he realized that a lot of the characteristics that he admired in his boss were skills that the man had likely honed in the Marines – his tracking instincts, physical strength and stamina, a forceful presence that demanded attention from anyone in proximity, and a masterful ability to conduct interrogations. Not to mention Gibbs' seemingly infallible sense of intuition – Tim would kill for that one. But as much as he respected Gibbs for all these talents, Tim had to acknowledge that his boss didn't really share his aptitude for more intellectual matters. Gibbs had no patience for Tim's technical or scientific explanations, and he couldn't understand a piece of technology more complex than a toaster oven. It wasn't that Tim couldn't recognize that Gibbs thought that he did good work, but Tim wondered if maybe Gibbs would never fully appreciate his true value to the team, given that their strengths were so disparate, and that so much of what Tim did was on a computer or otherwise behind the scenes. He could live with being undervalued as long as the cases got solved – that was all the satisfaction he really needed in the end – but in the meantime he was starting to wish that Gibbs wouldn't hold the reins so tightly. After all, he had a graduate degree from MIT, so he was pretty sure that he could handle making independent decisions, including how to spend his lunch break.

A sharp voice interrupted his internal monologue. "You think that report's going to get written by magic, McGee?"

"No, Boss! I'm on it!" The reply was almost like a reflex. '_Pick your battles, Tim_,' the junior agent's inner voice chided. Fighting over the right to have an unscheduled lunch break was hardly a worthwhile cause. Besides, what Gibbs appreciated was product, not process. Tim couldn't count the number of times that his mentor had cut him off mid-technobabble and instructed him to skip the explanation and get to the end result. So perhaps all he really needed was to start making a few more autonomous choices about the efficient use of his time. If the job got done, and it got done well, then he couldn't see that Gibbs would be concerned with the means by which Tim had gotten there. It would be a win-win situation, and in the end they'd both be happier.


	2. Chapter 2

The phone call had come in early that morning. A Navy lieutenant had reported her roommate missing, and Gibbs had brought Tim and Ziva along to interview the woman, leaving Tony behind at the office. The initial information about the case was hardly compelling, and Tim wasn't entirely sure why they needed even three agents to follow up on the call. Tim was confident that he could have handled the matter on his own, but he knew better than to ask Gibbs to justify his choice of assignments for the team members. And in any case, if Gibbs wanted to bring two people along with him, then certainly Tim was happier to be out in the field than sitting in the office filling out supply requisition forms, which was Tony's current assignment.

Now they sat together in the living room, attempting to piece together the details.

"When was the last time you saw her?" Gibbs asked the distraught roommate.

"Yesterday morning. We had breakfast together, and then I left for work."

"Lieutenant Carlton was not also going to work, then?" Ziva probed.

"No. Tuesdays are her day off. She works at the recruitment office. She usually spends Tuesdays running errands – grocery shopping and stuff that's hard to fit into a lunch break. And she probably went to the gym. Although she did that on other days too."

"The gym on base?" Tim asked.

"No, Lindy liked working out at a civilian gym. She goes to PowerWorld. I always kid her about it being better for picking up men than somewhere with a lot of military guys. Fewer complications, you know?"

"So did Lt. Carlton often 'pick up guys' at PowerWorld?" Ziva's tone was distasteful.

"No, it wasn't like that. It was just a joke, really. Well, I mean, I guess she chatted with men that she met there, and she probably had a date or two come from it, but it wasn't like she regularly hooked up with random guys that she met on a treadmill. The truth is that civilian men don't get so excited about dating a woman in the military. They don't swoon the way girls do about a guy in uniform." Angela smiled at Tim when she said this. Tim was flustered for a moment, but tried to cover it up with a question.

"But if Lindy – Lt. Carlton, I mean – were to have met someone that she liked, then would it have been unusual for her to, um, stay out all night with him?"

"If she had, then she would have called me."

"Maybe she just forgot," Ziva suggested, "In the moment of heat."

McGee grinned slightly at the misspoken cliché.

"No, Lindy wouldn't forget. And in any case, I've been trying to call her, but her cell phone is off, which isn't like her either. Look, I know we're just roommates, but Lindy and I are like sisters. We've been friends since high school. Only something really bad would keep her from calling. I just know something's happened to her!"

Gibbs interjected, "Then why did you wait until today to report her missing?"

"I called the police last night, but they said it was too soon to file a report. So I tried to convince myself that they were right – that Lindy just got sidetracked, or was out with someone she liked and lost track of time, and that I was just being overprotective. But when she wasn't here in the morning, I really panicked, and that's when I called you guys."

"OK, we'll see what we can find out. Other than the gym, do you know what her plans were for yesterday?"

"Grocery shopping, I think. She usually goes to the Super Saver over on Fifth. And I'm not sure what else. Maybe the dry cleaners?" Angela seemed to realize that she wasn't providing much useful information to the team of agents.

"Well, we'll start with that, Lt. Murray. If you hear from her, let us know right away." Gibbs handed Angela his card and indicated with a tilt of his head that Ziva and McGee should follow him outside.

Out on the porch, Ziva spoke first. "It is barely a case, Gibbs. A single woman spending a night away from home is hardly worth this level of an investigation."

"And what level of investigation is that, Officer David?"

"The level of three agents tracking down a woman who forgot to call her roommate after a date," Ziva's literal answer made it clear that she hadn't registered the criticism inherent in Gibbs' remark.

"That woman is a Navy Lieutenant, and we have no reason to believe that she spent last night on a date. The evidence of a crime may be slim right now, but as long as she's missing I'd rather take the risk of wasting resources and finding her alive in some motel room than discovering her dead body three days from now because you thought the roommate was overreacting. So get down to the recruitment office and find out what you can about Lindy Carlton and whether anyone else knows what she might have been doing yesterday or why she might have disappeared." Turning to Tim, Gibbs instructed, "McGee, I want you to find this gym – Power Gym?"

"PowerWorld."

"Whatever. Find it and see if anyone remembers seeing her there yesterday or noticed anything unusual."

"Right, Boss."

* * *

Tim sighed as he entered the gym. He hated places like this. It wasn't that he minded working out, but the voyeuristic nature of these large, shiny commercial gyms triggered all of his insecurities. They alternately reminded him of a high school gym class and a singles bar, two environments where Tim had never felt like he quite measured up.

A wave of techno pop music met him as he entered. Tim stood dumbly for a moment just inside the doors, overwhelmed by the sea of spandex and tank tops that seemed to move in unison on treadmills and ellipticals in front of him. He briefly wondered why they even bothered with the music, since everyone was tethered to a machine by their personal earphones.

His thoughts were interrupted by someone entering the gym behind him. Tim obligingly moved out of the way, but cringed when the man seemed to look him up and down as he passed. Or maybe it was just his paranoid imagination – Tim couldn't be sure. In any case, it reminded Tim why he was at the gym in the first place. He sucked his stomach in and drew his shoulders back as he headed to the front counter.

"Welcome to PowerWorld!" The greeting came from a ridiculously well-toned teenager in an official gym t-shirt.

"Uh, hi." Tim was annoyed at himself for feeling nervous just because the kid had enormous biceps.

"You're not a member, are you?" The comment was phrased more like an observation than a question.

"No. I'm actually here because…"

"We have a great special going on right now. No initiation fee, first six months at $29.99, and a free fitness consultation with one of our trainers."

Tim wondered if he looked like he could especially benefit from a fitness consultation. Then he remembered that he was twice this kid's age, and had a real job. He flashed his badge.

"I'm Special Agent Timothy McGee from NCIS. I'm actually here on an official investigation."

"You're a secret agent?" the clerk asked, clearly impressed.

Tim was about to correct him, but the badge and his new status as a spy seemed to be his ticket to getting the information he needed, so he decided to go along with it.

"Something like that. I'm hoping that you can help me with my mission today."

"OK, yeah, sure! What do you need?"

Minutes later, Tim exited the gym carrying a printout of everyone that had been in the gym on Tuesday, and a flash drive containing the club's entire membership database. If the kid had gotten his vision of law enforcement from watching too many movies, then he had apparently missed the scenes where vigilant clerks demanded warrants before handing over information. Tim had to laugh, though. Usually it would be Tony who got to play the suave detective on a covert operation, or some other fictional persona. Tim had enjoyed the game, however brief, and was pleased at the results it had net him.

* * *

Back at the office, Tim and Ziva were briefing Tony and Gibbs when the phone rang on the senior agent's desk. The three younger agents waited, trying in vain to figure out the content of the conversation from the clipped responses of their boss. As usual, it was just easier to wait to see if Gibbs would share. The wait turned out to be short, and Gibbs gave them a grim report of the call.

"The police found Lindy Carlton's body. She was wearing gym clothes, and there's evidence of sexual assault. Ziva, go tell Ducky to meet us at the scene. DiNozzo, get the truck."

Tim went to grab his gear from his desk, but Gibbs stopped him.

"McGee, you're staying here."

"What? Why?" Tim realized as the questions came out that he sounded a bit petulant, but it didn't seem fair that the entire team was off to the crime scene without him.

Before continuing with his instructions, Gibbs gave him a brief but pointed stare to communicate the message that he did not owe his junior agent any justification for his decisions.

"Because I need you starting in on the investigation. We don't usually have data before we have a body. But you've already got leads on this case."

"What do you mean?"

"You've got a list of everyone that entered the gym on the same day as Lt. Carlton, at least officially. And since she was found in her workout gear, there's a good chance that she met her attacker inside the facility. So you need to start running down the names of everyone she might have encountered."

"But it's impossible to know from the list who she might have engaged with in the gym."

"It's not impossible, McGee. It's your job." Gibbs snapped.

"Right, boss. But the gym just gave me a printout of everyone who swiped a membership card during the whole day. According to the records, our victim entered the gym at 11:17 AM. So assuming a 45 minute workout, and maybe 5 minutes before to change clothes and 5 minutes afterwards, unless of course she usually took a shower, except that I guess we know she didn't on that day – "

Gibbs cut into his rambling.

"A four hour window, McGee. I want you looking into everyone who entered the gym between two hours before and after Lindy Carlton."

"But Boss – that includes everyone's lunchtime workouts!" McGee started incredulously. He picked up the pages from the gym. "There must be 200 people on the list in that time frame!"

"Then I guess you'd better get started." Gibbs replied unsympathetically.

Tim sullenly watched his boss leave. The feeling of being in detention returned. Not only was he not joining the team in the field, but Gibbs had dropped him in front of a haystack with instructions to inspect each piece of hay in search of a needle. Two hundred names. Gibbs couldn't be serious. It wasn't like Tim had a problem processing a lot of data, but this was going to take phone calls and personal contact, and Tim hated making cold calls. It always made him feel like he was 14 again and calling to ask a girl out on a date. Plus, Lindy Carlton had probably been in the gym for less than an hour, and whoever attacked her probably arrived in the 30 minutes before or after her, so it was a waste of time to track down people who would have entered the gym outside this window.

Tim sighed. He supposed that he'd better get started. Then again, he mused, maybe he shouldn't be so quick to dismiss his internal grumbling. Underneath what he could admit was a bit of whining was a legitimate objection to Gibbs' unfocused instructions. Ultimately all his boss wanted was to find the person responsible for the crime, and there was no need to throw such a large net out to catch a very specific fish. What was needed here, Tim posited, was a directed search based on a likely profile of the killer. Tim started to restrict the parameters. He'd start by narrowing the time window – 11:00 AM till 12:30 PM should be sufficient, he surmised. And given the fact that there had been a sexual assault, he'd eliminate all the females. Tim was pleased at how many names these two criteria shaved off the list, but it still left dozens of people to check. He started to conjecture other restrictions for the data, figuring out a probable age range, and slowly eliminating the excess of individuals to track down.

Finally Tim was satisfied. He plugged the flash drive into his computer with the membership data from the gym, and typed in his constraints. Thirty-two names returned. Tim smiled. That was much better. He could run those people through various databases, and follow up with phone calls. If that didn't net results, then he would loosen some of his restrictions and expand the search, but since he'd based his hypotheses on experience and solid profiling techniques, Tim was quite confident that his method would be successful. It was like panning for gold, he reflected, and you had to shake out the sediment before you could find the nuggets.


	3. Chapter 3

As sure as Tim had been that his methods were valid and scientific, he still couldn't help but be astonished at how perfectly everything fell into place. He'd run the thirty-two names through an assortment of criminal and military databases, and made some preliminary attempts to contact everyone by phone. It had been his hope that by the time the team returned from the crime scene, he would be able to present them with a list of three likely suspects. Maybe five at the most. But everything pointed to one name. Corey Traverse. Traverse had enlisted in the Marines two years ago but had washed out of boot camp. He had a restraining order and a domestic abuse charge from a previous relationship, and his current girlfriend reported that he hadn't come home since they'd fought two nights ago. But he'd swiped his membership card at PowerWorld just seven minutes after Lindy Carlton entered the gym on Tuesday. Tim couldn't believe his luck. It was like the guy had a neon sign flashing "Murderer" over his head.

Within an hour, Gibbs returned with the other agents. Ziva and Tony got Tim up to speed on the initial findings from the body, and each suggested directions that might be fruitful to start investigating. Tim listened absent-mindedly while Ziva talked about digging more deeply into the victim's previous boyfriends and her relationship with the roommate, and Tony offered to explore Lt. Carlton's history and contacts in the Navy. Finally Gibbs turned to Tim.

"McGee – you find anything?"

"Yes, Boss!" Tim attempted to project confidence without too much giddy enthusiasm, which he didn't think would be appropriate. "I followed up on the list from the gym, and I believe that we have a viable suspect."

Gibbs looked a bit surprised, and Tim felt inwardly pleased.

"Show us what you've got, then."

Tim put Corey Traverse's driver's license up on the plasma and relayed the basic information that he'd gleaned about the man's past history and currently unknown whereabouts.

"Did he have contact with Lt. Carlton?" Ziva asked.

"I haven't been able to determine that yet." Tim replied. "But I checked with the gym's records, and on each of the last three Tuesdays he's entered the facility within 15 minutes of Lindy Carlton. And his failed attempt at a military career could be a motive. He shows a clear pattern of hostility issues with both women and the military."

"OK, DiNozzo, follow up on this guy. Find out who and where he is, and let's get him in here. What else do you know, McGee?"

"I think I've presented everything I know so far about Traverse…"

"About _other _potential suspects, McGee," Gibbs said impatiently.

"Oh, right." Tim was momentarily flustered by the request. "Well, um, there aren't any."

"In a list of 200 names you haven't got any other leads worth following?"

It wasn't until Gibbs said "200 names" that Tim remembered the original list. He hesitated before replying. Gibbs would kill him if Tim admitted that had not actually investigated all of the people on the roster. But that wouldn't really be a fair assessment of what Tim had done. In effect, he _had_ investigated everyone, by analyzing their information and making educated decisions about whether they warranted further probing. And Tim had scrutinized everyone who had met these standards, and only Corey Traverse had emerged from that process as a potential suspect. So it didn't make sense to imply to Gibbs that Tim hadn't done his job, when he clearly had. Gibbs wanted to know who the attacker was, and Tim had figured that out for him. That was all that really mattered in the end.

"No, Boss." Tim answered with assurance. "This was the only name that panned out. I think we've got something here."

"You're with DiNozzo, then. Ziva, I still want you looking into the other people in Lindy Carlton's life, past and present."

"Is that really necessary?" Tim blurted out.

Ziva and Tony gaped at McGee, and Tim realized that it had been a stupid thing to say, but he tried to look casual about having said it.

Gibbs stared him down. "I hope your hunch is right, McGee. But until I've got the son of a bitch who raped and murdered Lt. Carlton under arrest, we're going to continue to investigate all avenues that are open to us in this case. Any objections to that?"

"No, Boss." Tim answered, somewhat mollified.

"Good. Then get moving."

Tim went to grab his gear from his desk. He felt embarrassed about the way this conversation had ended. He wanted to get back the rush that he'd felt knowing that Gibbs was pleased with his discovery of Corey Traverse as a suspect. As he hurried to follow Tony into the elevator, he reassured himself that the feeling would return when they brought Traverse in for questioning, and Gibbs saw that Tim's suspicions had been right all along.


	4. Chapter 4

It took Tony and Tim less than day to locate Corey Traverse. They discovered him at a roadside motel checked in under his own name, which Tim thought was pretty stupid for a guy on the run. Traverse claimed that he was just biding his time at the motel until his girlfriend begged him to come back. He didn't deny going to the gym on Tuesday, but he swore that he had no idea who Lindy Carlton was. That was to be expected, though, and Tim knew that Gibbs would get the truth out of him in interrogation.

Ziva stood with Tim outside the two-way mirror, watching the questioning. So far it had been fruitless, and though Gibbs never showed his cards to a suspect, Tim knew that their boss was frustrated. Traverse was alternately irate and sullen. Since he admitted being at the gym he didn't have a useful alibi for the time of death, but he claimed to have spent most of the time since then watching porn in his motel room. Tim found him completely distasteful, and hoped that Gibbs would break him soon.

"If he is lying about the murder, then he is quite good at it." Ziva remarked.

"You think so?" Tim was surprised – Ziva usually had excellent intuition about such things.

"Gibbs has been at him for a long time, and there has been no sign of him cracking."

"The guy's a criminal, Ziva. He's got a record – this isn't his first interrogation."

"Still, it does not strike me like he is hiding anything. It feels like he has nothing to say."

"He'll have something to say when Abby's finished processing the forensic evidence from his car."

"Perhaps."

Ziva shrugged and left to return to her desk. Tim watched Gibbs for a little while longer, feeling disappointed in the progress. Soon the senior agent emerged from the small room.

"Boss?"

"No point continuing this until we have something concrete that ties him to Lindy Carlton."

"We have the military connection." Tim supplied, trying to be helpful.

Gibbs snapped at him. "All we know is that he's a lazy punk with an attitude problem who would have made a crappy Marine. That's not enough to convict him of murdering a recruitment officer who liked to work out in a Navy t-shirt, McGee."

"Right, sorry." Tim didn't know what else to say.

Gibbs headed off to check in with Tony and Ziva, and Tim followed dejectedly, smarting a bit from the rebuke. He wished things would fall into place faster, and he found himself feeling irritated with everyone on the team for not doing their part to help him out. It seemed that even Abby was dragging her feet running the lab tests.

When they reached the bullpen, Tony was just finishing a conversation on the phone.

"What have you got, DiNozzo?" Gibbs prompted brusquely as Tony hung up the receiver.

"I'm not sure, Boss. That was a woman named Alyssa Stanford. The gym told her to call us."

"What for?"

"She says she knows Lindy – that they started running together on the treadmills a few months ago when they realized that they were both usually there at the same time on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She didn't even know Lindy's last name, but they have a pretty regular routine. Tuesday they were running together when Lindy's cell phone rang, and she said that she had to take the call. Alyssa says that she went outside to get away from the noise, and never came back. She just figured that the call had been important and Lindy had to go deal with something. But when she didn't show up again today, Alyssa made a passing remark about it to the desk clerk that McGee spoke to yesterday, and he directed her to us. Something about a covert spy operation – I didn't really get that part."

"Well, McGee?"

"I know, Boss. The kid thought I was a spy, and I didn't bother to disillusion him of that notion, which I know I should have. But it helped me get the information that I needed faster, so I didn't think that it would really be a big deal…"

"I don't give a damn if the kid thinks that you're a cartoon superhero, McGee. I want to know what this Alyssa Stanford said the first time you talked to her."

Tim felt a momentary wave of panic. Before he could reply, Ziva jumped into the conversation.

"Did she hide this piece of information from you? Perhaps she is involved and is now feeling guilty for what she did."

Tim started answering slowly. "Well, uh, I wouldn't really say that she was hiding information exactly."

"But you did not think that she had anything worth pursuing yesterday. You eliminated her from our list of leads."

"Well, eliminated might not be the…uh… right word for it…"

Tony and Ziva looked at him with confusion. Gibbs' eyes darkened as he registered what his junior agent was implying.

"Did you call Alyssa Stanford on Wednesday?"

"Not exactly. No."

"Was she on the list?"

Tim rifled through some papers on his desk and found the original list. Scanning the names, he felt his stomach drop.

"Yes, I guess she was."

"But you didn't call her."

"Boss, I know that this looks bad, but what you have to understand is that I made an executive decision to narrow the search parameters as a way to…"

"You made a WHAT, McGee?"

"I just thought that it made the most sense to prioritize the list for relevancy before doing the initial processing. Otherwise it would have just been a waste of time to blindly work through the data."

The silence in the room was palpably dangerous. There was no mistaking the anger in Gibbs' voice when he finally spoke.

"You will wait for me in Interrogation Room 2, and when I get there you'd better have your nose pressed against a wall."

Tim felt his face get hot, and saw Tony and Ziva avoiding his eyes. As he started to walk past them, he heard Tony whisper "Sorry, Probie" with surprising sincerity. Tim knew that Tony had been there before – Tony always made a big production of making sure that everyone knew when he'd been punished and how sore he was afterwards. He usually carried on until Gibbs threatened to do it again. But on the few occasions when Tim had been punished, he'd tried to hide that fact from his co-workers. Bonding with Tony over a spanking wasn't really an idea that Tim found appealing.

Tim let himself into the interrogation room. He paced back and forth for a bit, wondering how he'd gotten himself into this situation. He thought about Corey Traverse, waiting in an identical room down the hall. Tim still wasn't completely convinced that Traverse wasn't involved. He could easily have seen Lindy take the phone call, and then followed her outside, and abducted her from there. But Tim had to admit that they didn't really have a lot to go on right now, and that maybe he shouldn't have shaved quite so many names off the initial list.

Tim wandered over to the side of the room. He felt a bit ridiculous, but knew that it didn't pay to provoke an already furious Gibbs. So he stood in place, examining the various marks in the wall. Periodically he looked towards the door, wondering how long it would take for his boss to show up.

As the minutes passed, Tim started to feel a bit indignant. He was an adult, and all he'd done was take some initiative in an investigation. It was absurd that he was standing, nose to the wall, like some naughty 8 year old. He did not have to let himself be treated this way. Tim turned around, just in time to see Gibbs enter the room.

"Going somewhere, McGee?"

"No, Boss." Tim replied quickly.

"Then get back in position."

"I was there before you came in."

"I'm sure you were. But it seems you're having some trouble these days following through on my orders."

For a brief instant, Tim considered arguing with Gibbs. But he realized this was not a battle he would win, so he mentally sighed and got back into position. He heard Gibbs pull out a chair and sit down.

At long last, the senior agent stood up and spoke.

"Turn around, Tim."

Tim complied, staring at a point above Gibbs' head.

"Do you have anything to say before your punishment?"

"I was only doing what I thought was best for the investigation."

"That's disappointing to hear, Tim."

"I don't know what you want me to say."

Gibbs stared at him quietly for a few moments, then removed his belt.

"Lower your pants, Tim."

Tim looked straight at his boss, aghast.

"Why?"

"Because I told you to."

"But, you've never made me do that before!" Tim spluttered.

"And you've never let your ego compromise a case before."

Tim was stung by that statement. This wasn't about ego. It was about intellect. He mentally struggled to come up with a suitable and inoffensive way to explain this to Gibbs.

"McGee, we've already lost at least a day on this case because of you. Let's not waste any more."

Tim nodded dumbly, recognizing that the punishment was inevitable. He fumbled to unbuckle his belt, and pushed his pants and boxers down below his knees.

"Over the table."

Tim positioned himself across the metal desk, gripping the sides with his hands. He expected this to be hard, even if it wasn't deserved.

His prediction soon proved to be accurate. Gibbs began strapping him forcefully, and Tim grit his teeth to keep silent. He would take what Gibbs doled out, and then they could move on. God, it hurt a lot, though. Tim tried to tune out the sound of the blows landing on his bare ass, but in its place he heard Gibbs' admonition. _You've never let your ego compromise a case before. _Tim let out an anguished cry as the belt striped his upper thighs. _His ego_. _Compromised the case_. Tim redoubled his efforts to stay quiet and clenched his hands even more tightly around the edges of the table. _Alyssa Stanford. Why hadn't he called Alyssa Stanford? Maybe it had been rash to eliminate all the women from the list. But he'd had a reason at the time._ Tim tried to reconstruct the logic he'd used to whittle down the names, but it was impossible to think straight with the pain blazing across his behind. It was also getting increasingly difficult to contain his whimpering. He squeezed his eyes shut, and in that instant he recognized the truth of the matter. _Gibbs was right. It was nothing but arrogance. A murderer had been on the loose for two days because of his arrogance. _Tim let his head drop to the table. Almost simultaneously, Gibbs stopped spanking him.

Tim's breath was ragged, and he struggled to catch it. He realized that hadn't broken down crying, which he'd always done before, despite the fact that his previous spankings hadn't been nearly as severe. Just like always, though, he didn't think he could face Gibbs right away.

"You can stand up now, Tim. It's over."

Tim didn't move.

"Now, please."

Gibbs' voice was gentle, but it was still clear that he expected to be obeyed.

Tim pushed himself up awkwardly. He pulled up his pants, giving his boss just enough of a glance to be sure that he was allowed to do so. Once dressed, he kept his head down.

"Do you have anything to say now, Tim?"

"I made a mistake, Boss." Tim said, almost inaudibly.

"Go on."

"I thought I knew what was best for the investigation."

"And?"

"And I thought you didn't…the rest of you …didn't know what was best."

"You made decisions that weren't yours to make."

"I just felt confident that they were the right ones. But I guess I was wrong."

"Confidence and arrogance aren't the same thing, Tim."

Tim nodded, starting to feel his eyes sting with impending tears.

"I get it, Boss."

Gibbs lifted Tim's chin.

"I trust that you do, McGee. I value your contributions to this team, but don't you ever make the mistake of thinking that they're more valuable than anyone else's."

"I won't." Tim's voice cracked.

"Good. Is there anything else you think we need to discuss?"

Tim shook his head.

"Then we have a case to solve. Do you need a minute?"

Tim nodded in assent, too emotional to speak. He didn't need a minute, though. He needed a week, or maybe a month. He needed to dig a giant hole and fling himself in it. He needed to not see Tony's face mocking him for getting spanked. He needed to curl up on the floor and cry.

"Come back when you're ready, then." Gibbs headed towards the door.

"What if I can't?" Tim whispered.

Gibbs returned and put his hand on Tim's arm.

"That's not an option, Tim. You're needed on this case. You can't get it right every time, but I don't think you're going to get it quite this wrong again for awhile now, do you?"

"Not ever, Boss."

Gibbs laughed. "How about one day at a time, alright?" He patted Tim on the arm, and Tim knew it was the closest Gibbs ever got to a giving someone a hug. "You're going to be OK, Tim."

Tim watched his mentor leave the room. Finally alone, he slid down the wall and sobbed until there was nothing left. Totally spent, he wondered how he'd find the inner strength to stand up and walk back into the office. Then he remembered Tony's genuine concern as he'd been sent to await his punishment, and Gibbs' reassurance afterwards, and he knew that he could face them again.


End file.
